Alexithymia Is Associated with Greater Risk of Chronic Pain and Negative Affect and with Lower Life Satisfaction in a General Population: The Hisayama Study

Abstract

IntroductionChronic pain is a significant health problem worldwide, with a prevalence in the general population of approximately 40%. Alexithymia — the personality trait of having difficulties with emotional awareness and self-regulation — has been reported to contribute to an increased risk of several chronic diseases and health conditions, and limited research indicates a potential role for alexithymia in the development and maintenance of chronic pain. However, no study has yet examined the associations between alexithymia and chronic pain in the general population.MethodsWe administered measures assessing alexithymia, pain, disability, anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction to 927 adults in Hisayama, Japan. We classified the participants into four groups (low-normal alexithymia, middle-normal alexithymia, high-normal alexithymia, and alexithymic) based on their responses to the alexithymia measure. We calculated the risk estimates for the criterion measures by a logistic regression analysis.ResultsControlling for demographic variables, the odds ratio (OR) for having chronic pain was significantly higher in the high-normal (OR: 1.49, 95% CI: 1.07–2.09) and alexithymic groups (OR: 2.56, 95% CI: 1.47–4.45) compared to the low-normal group. Approximately 40% of the participants belonged to these two high-risk groups. In the subanalyses of the 439 participants with chronic pain, the levels of pain intensity, disability, depression, and anxiety were significantly increased and the degree of life satisfaction was decreased with elevating alexithymia categories.ConclusionsThe findings demonstrate that, in the general population, higher levels of alexithymia are associated with a higher risk of having chronic pain. The early identification and treatment of alexithymia and negative affect may be beneficial in preventing chronic pain and reducing the clinical and economic burdens of chronic pain. Further research is needed to determine if this association is due to a causal effect of alexithymia on the prevalence and severity of chronic pain.

Prevalence of Geriatric Depression and Alexithymia and their association with sociodemographic characteristics in a sample of elderly persons living in Buenos Aires, Argentina

“…Similar findings were published by Honkalampi et al 32 and Shibata et al 33 and, in Argentina, by Urrutia et al 26 , who found that people with a low educational level had higher Alexithymia scores. Although the study by Urrutia et al was performed among the general population, as mentioned above, Alexithymia was found to be associated with different psychosomatic diseases.…”

Influencing factors of alexithymia in Chinese medical students: a cross-sectional study

“…A number of researchers have introduced instruments to measure alexithymia, including the Observer-Alexithymia Scale [26], the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA) [27], and the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) [14, 28, 29]. The Observer-Alexithymia Scale and TSIA are observer-based measurements that have a potential weakness in the capacity to produce reliable ratings of respondent awareness across different interviewers and other raters [27].…”

Funcionamiento psicosocial en pacientes agudos y crónicos no psiquiátricos en régimen hospitalario: depresión, alexitimia y falta de asertividad

“…Honkalampi et al 32 verificaron que 10% de la población general sería alexitímica, con una frecuencia significativamente superior entre los hombres, diferencia no pesquisada en esta investigación. Adicionalmente, los autores hallaron que los alexitímicos tuvieron una significativa menor escolarización, aseveración concordante con nuestro registro, donde la categoría educacional básico-media exhibió cifras de alexitimia mayores al doble de las expuestas por el grupo técnico-universitario, hecho confirmado por investigadores japoneses, quienes detectaron asociaciones significativas inversas entre alexitimia y nivel educacional y socioeconómico 33 . Así, las variables sociales explicarían 9% de la varianza en los puntajes del TAS-20 29 , pues la limitación económica impactaría en una mayor privación sociocultural instructiva, constituyendo una vulnerabilidad para el desarrollo de rasgos alexitímicos en relación a la menor adquisición de un vocabulario complejo para la notificación emocional 27 .…”